Large cutter suction dredgers must often carry out operations at sea or on unsheltered waters. The waves cause the vessel to move and great forces can herein be exited on the couplings between the vessel and the bottom, these couplings being formed mainly by a spud and cutter ladder. These couplings must on the one hand be rigid in order to enable an efficient cutter process, but may not be too stiff because otherwise excessive forces are generated in the spud by the pontoon following the movements of the larger waves.
The invention has for its object to propose an apparatus of the type stated in the preamble which behaves as a spud carriage mounting in the pontoon with a variable rigidity—rigid in the case of small waves and more flexible at critical wave conditions—and in particular with a rigidity which decreases sharply at a determined maximum load of the spud plus spud carriage.